1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to a fluorescent light fixture and more particularly to a fixture including a wiring wireway cover which is convenient to mount and dismount from the fixture itself.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the construction of lighting fixtures and particularly fluorescent lighting fixtures adapted to mount electrical components for operating fluorescent light tubes from, for instance a DC source, it has been common practice to form such fixtures with a housing having a wireway cover mounted centrally thereon and concealed from view by an overlying lens. It has been common practice to mount such way covers from the fixture housing in a manner which will provide for mounting and dismounting thereof. This feature is important since safety restrictions promulgated by Underwriters Laboratories and others require that the fixture, when shipped from the manufacturer, have the way covers mounted on the fixtures.
In the past, it has been common practice to form such way covers of a generally elongated channel construction to mount over electrical components disposed centrally along the front face of the back wall of such fixtures and to then mount a stand off stud centrally from the back wall, such stud being formed at its forward extremity with a threaded bore for receipt of a fastening screw. A mating bore is then formed in the channel for passage therethrough of the fastening screw to be threaded into such threaded bore to reasonably maintain the channel in position.
Such prior art devices, while meeting safety requirements and serving their intended purposes, suffer the shortcoming that, for relatively inexpensive fixtures, the manufacturing costs are significant and the assembly procedure inconvenient and cumbersome. That is, the stand off stud itself is relatively expensive and the assembly technique, requiring a rivet gun or the like, is time consuming. Moreover, the procedure for mounting and dismounting the way cover requires a certain amount of dexterity and is, itself, time consuming. This factor is of importance since the way cover must be mounted at the factory for shipment and, typically, must then be dismounted to have access to the back wall for mounting purposes at the site of installation. After the housing has been mounted from the ceiling or wall of, for instance, a recreational vehicle, the way cover must then again be installed. This requires a certain amount of dexterity, particularly for relatively unskilled, do-it-yourselfers, who may be installing light fixtures for the first time. To mount the way cover from the fixture, either at the factory or upon installation of the fixture, it is necessary to position the way cover in overlying relationship with the electrical components, align the bore of the way cover with the threaded bore in the stand off stud, hold the way cover in position while manipulating the fastening screw into position projecting through the bore and the way cover to screw it into the threaded bore.
Efforts to overcome this shortcoming of the prior art have led to the development of extruded fixture housings which are formed in their back walls with longitudinally extending flanges formed with confronting spaced apart lips spaced from the back wall to form grooves for receipt therein of the opposed flanges of a flexible sheet metal way cover. However, such prior art devices suffer the shortcoming that, by its very nature, the extrusion technique leads to such flanges and grooves being formed the entire length of the housing thus creating a raised flange in the back wall where the fluorescent tube sockets are mounted. This then adds an additional step requiring the flanges to be machined off in the area where the sockets are to be mounted prior to assembly, thus adding prohibitively to the expense of manufacture. Thus, there exists a need for a light fixture housing and way cover combination which are inexpensive to manufacture and convenient to assemble and disassemble from one another.